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FivePoint Gets Their Way

The Irvine City Council caved last night and made a developer super rich. FivePoint got a 3-2 vote after additional concessions that really amount to a drop in the bucket from the city council.

The Voice of OC has the straight news story here; if you want to read the cheerleader edition, catch Mickadeit’s column in the Orange County Cheerleader (er, Register). The betting money is they’ll never answer.

We’ve sent a consultant from FivePoint the questions we posed yesterday to see if the developer will answer the question, but when all is said and done, they’ll be in the one percent of the one percent.

As an optimist, some things to point to for the 2014 elections. The City’s GOP majority sold us out which gives progressives plenty to run on. Last night’s closely watched meeting exposed Mayor Steven Choi as incompetent. He literally needed Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Lalloway to spell out points of discussion “in plain English” and still seemed to not understand the issue before him. Choi may have a PhD but our mayor is either clueless or stupid and quite possibly both.

And while the GOP council majority voted as one, there are two distinct factions that have emerged. The Choi/Shea side and the Lalloway side. Not only will Republicans have to battle Democrats to maintain majority status in 2014, they’ll have to fight each other.

I did run into the Register’s Brian Calle to ask him about something he wrote in Sunday’s editorial, that the Park “has been beset by one scandal after another” and asked him, “what scandal?”

“The Forde & Mollrich contract for example,” he said.

That’s not a scandal. The contract was awarded in compliance with the city’s rules and with a vote of the Great Park Board. The work done by Forde & Mollrich to bring the Solar Decathlon to the Great Park likely results in an ROI of $1.87 for every dollar spent on the PR firm’s retainer dating back to the original agreement. Calle was unable to name another scandal off the top of his head.

I asked why he hasn’t opined on the Forensic Audit which missed an earlier deadline of October 16 and is delayed until after the first of the year. He said he’s not on the news desk but an editorial writer. Nice punt. As it stands now, the only Great Park contractor not in compliance with their contract is the forensic auditor themselves. I’ve heard from two different sources in city hall that Council member Christina Shea wants to give subpoena powers to the auditor. Perhaps she believes that criminal activity occurred while she was a member of the Great Park Board and City Council all those years.